FLORIDA – A Florida mortgage loan officer has been sentenced for bank fraud and aggravated identity theft that involved faking judges’ signatures on bogus court documents, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida (USAO).
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Omayra Ujaque, 52, of St. Cloud, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Paul Byron last week to two years and eight months in federal prison for bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. A jury found Ujaque guilty on April 13, 2023.
According to evidence presented at trial, Ujaque planned and carried out a mortgage fraud scheme directed at the financial institution where she worked while acting in her role as a licensed mortgage loan officer.
Ujaque is accused of fabricating or inflating the amounts of the borrowers’ monthly child support payments on mortgage loan applications that she signed and certified to the financial institution’s underwriting division to ensure that otherwise ineligible borrowers were approved for mortgage loans.
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Evidence established that Ujaque fabricated phony final judgments of divorce and final orders amending child support to promote her plan. These documents falsely claimed that the borrowers were entitled to receive fictional monthly child support payments.
The fake Final Judgments of Divorce or Final Orders Modifying Child Support were signed by Ujaque using the identities of judges from the Circuit Court of the Ninth District of Florida, according to the prosecution.
The evidence shows that Ujaque also made fictitious statements for the Florida Department of Revenue, displaying false monthly child support payments and phony prepaid debit card statements reporting false borrower withdrawals of the fictitious monthly child support payments.
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Most of the time, the borrowers had never been married or didn’t have the reported children. The USAO said Ujaque provided fake documentation to the lending company to support the fictitious monthly income claimed on the loan applications.
According to the USAO, the financial institution accepted and financed the mortgage loans based on Ujaque’s false statements.
This case was investigated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency – Office of Inspector General, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development – Office of Inspector General, and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation. Special Assistant United States Attorney Chris Poor prosecuted it.
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